Not so way back when we'd a small amount of opportunities to shop. We either took a vacation into town, shopped from a catalogue or we clipped out a coupon and popped it in the post. Which was it.
Today however, there is an additional destination for a shop. Today we've the Internet and what a place to shop that is. Despite being the new kid on the block in terms of actual places to shop, the Internet is rapidly overtaking other places to shop assembled!
So if we now favour the Internet to satisfy our retail therapy habit, what future does the high street have?
Since the initial online transaction fourteen years back, the tide of sales from the high street to the Internet has been one of the ways, and this has been gathering pace.
No longer limited by too little available retail space, internet vendors can hold huge inventories that their bricks and mortar counterparts can only dream of. Fashion stores in particular, rather that electrical or home ware stores, have cheated this new found freedom and may now offer unlimited fashion ranges and a wider selection of sizes within those ranges. Add to that particular a virtual fashion adviser, a style selector and online fashion shows, it's no wonder that the bricks and mortar fashion stores future looks uncertain.
It's no real surprise that high street fashion stores also provide an on line presence, because the alarm bells have now been ringing for a few time. A minumum of one well-known name in catalogue and home shopping has seen Internet sales overtake it's traditional catalogue sales in 2010 and has responded accordingly. In monetary terms alone, the return on investment on the Internet far outweighs the return of investment from a printed catalogue. The expenses of producing a printed catalogue are huge, which will be unsustainable if the switch to the Internet continues.
With no a crystal ball, it's fair to state that ultimately (probably sooner), shopping trips to town and flicking by way of a catalogue will be more of a workout in nostalgia than necessity.
To combat the swing away fro traditional shopping outlets, it's hard to see the way the high street and the catalogues can compete. You will find just a lot of advantages to shopping online.
For enough time being at least, high street fashion stores are playing their part in the entire shopping mix and I'd suggest we must use them or before long we'll lose them.
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